Saturday, November 19, 2016

The Trump Presidency and America’s Challenge

Now that the United States has
put its historic elections behind it, and as we go about examining the poll
results, it’s clear that we cannot keep reducing the factors involved in
facilitating the election of Donald Trump as the 45th president
of the United States to issues such as racism, xenophobia and misogyny.

Considering that many of those
who had voted for President Barack Obama back in 2008 and 2012 have now opted to vote for Mr. Trump, and that more than 50
percent of white women have voted for him as well, we have to concede the
existence of other issues and factors at play in this matter including, among
other things, the growing rural-urban divide, blue-collar disenchantment, and
lingering questions about who is entitled to define America’s cultural
identity.

Still, having heard the man and
his supporters speak over the last few months and having followed coverage of
his rallies, we also cannot ignore the important role that
racism, xenophobia and misogyny played in Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign and
in shaping the final decision made by many of his supporters.

More importantly, we cannot
ignore Mr. Trump’s own role in deliberately stoking sentiments in this regard.
Whether he did so out of sincere ideological conviction or for immediate
tactical benefits is irrelevant when it comes to considering how this tendency
reflects on his character, and to assessing the dangers involved in having a
man willing to go down the road of hatemongering and divisiveness serve as the
president of the country.

I know something about that road.
In Syria, my country of origin, the current civil war that has claimed the
lives of more than half a million people over the last five years has broken
out largely on account of having a ruling elite willing to stoke inter-communal
fears and suspicions in order to preserve and consolidate its hold on power. In
fact, judging from their pronouncements and behavior, both Mr. Trump and the
Syrian President, Bashar Al-Assad, seem to share the same misguided and
narcissistic belief in their personal “necessity” and “indispensability” in the
overall scheme of things. That mindset has encouraged Mr. Assad to decimate his
people and destroy his country in an effort to make it his again. For his part,
Mr. Trump has repeatedly reiterated that only he can make
America great again. With this in mind, I cannot but fear that the rise of Mr.
Trump will constitute a step along a very slippery slope.

And I am certainly not the only
one.

The anti-Trump protests currently
sweeping across the nation are composed of people who seem to share my dread.
While those decrying these protests like to remind us that no such development
unfolded when President Obama was elected to office, the two situations are not
really alike, largely because the two men involved are not alike. There was
nothing in Obama’s character or his electoral promises, rhetoric or behavior
that would have incited or justified a decision by his opponents to take to the
streets. The same cannot be said for Mr. Trump, considering his statements
about Latinos, African-Americans, Muslims and women throughout the course of
his campaign. Trying to sweep this matter under the rug by resort to false
analogies is disingenuous and gives protesters more reason to keep going.

And it’s not just Democrats and
establishment Republicans at whom Trump’s character flaws leap out; America’s
European allies are also alarmed. Just bear in mind how German Chancellor
Angela Merkel responded to Trump’s election: “Germany and America
are bound by common values: democracy, freedom, as well as respect for the rule
of law and the dignity of each and every person regardless of their origin,
skin color, creed, gender, sexual orientation or political views,” she said.
Cooperation with the United States, she said rather pointedly, must be “based
on these values.”

This is not exactly a ringing
endorsement. The Chancellor was in fact channeling the sentiments of many of
America’s allies in Europe and beyond.

By contrast, the genocidal Bashar
Al-Assad could barely hide his glee at the prospect of
cooperating with the Trump administration and effectively becoming a U.S. ally.
The fact that his regime, with the support of Iran and Russia, is responsible
for the overwhelming majority of death and destruction in the country, and that
it has played an active role in facilitating the rise of Al-Qaeda and the
Islamic State (by releasing their leaders from its prisons in the early
day of the Syrian Revolution, avoiding direct conflict with them on the battlefield
focusing instead on moderate rebels, and by doing
business with them), seems inconsequential to Mr. Trump, who has long adopted Mr. Assad’s macabre and self-serving view on
the matter.

Even Al-Qaeda and other extremist
Islamist groups celebrated Mr. Trump’s electoral victory, seeing it as
a boon and a boost to their recruitment campaigns.

Coming soon on the heels of
Brexit and the return of the Far Right to political relevance in many parts of
Europe, it seems clear that we are dealing with a global phenomenon here
triggered to a certain extent by Russia’s renewed aggressiveness, as well as
renewed chaos in the Middle East (especially the Syrian civil war and the
massive wave of refugees it has triggered), and the rise of ISIS.

In Europe, the underlying theme
of this development is the presumption that European identity is inherently
white and Christian, and that it is, therefore, incompatible with the
traditional values of migrants and refugees from African and Asian backgrounds,
especially Arabs and Muslims. Considering the anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim
rhetoric deployed by Mr. Trump and his supporters and the total lack of
sympathy they have shown to the plight of the Syrian refugees, a similar set of
tectonic forces seems to be involved here as well.

But the role of ideology does not
seem quite as pronounced in the Trump phenomenon as it is in Europe. Trump,
after all, does not clearly believe in anything. His words and promises are
entirely unstable. And there’s actually opportunity in that. It means that we
still have time to reach out across the growing divide in the country and try to
find common ground.

Indeed, we need to take full
advantage of the fact that the ideological component of the Trump camp is still
relatively weak. We should not give the ideologically-motivated bunch the time
they need to consolidate their hold on a Trump administration and transform it
into a full-fledged authoritarian movement.

For this reason alone, it is not
enough to protest the man and what he represents. Democrats and anti-Trump
Republicans need to be more proactive in this regard, and should quickly reach
out to each other. If they cannot find common grounds beyond hating Trump, they
will certainly not be able to reach any of his supporters.

Moreover, Democrats need to be
wary of the populists within their own ranks. There are simply too many commonalities
between the policies proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders and those proposed by
Mr. Trump, more than enough to justify a deeper scrutiny of the worldview
involved among the Left populists as well. The people on the Far Left might be
more inclusive domestically, but their protectionist and isolationist impulses
amount to a de facto abandonment of the world and of the most vulnerable
populations within it. Trump hates foreigners; and the left hates trading with
foreigners. And it too is willing to allow the authoritarian leaders and the
corrupt elite of countries like Russia, China and Iran to redraw the world in
their own image. Unsurprisingly, this is no more conducive to world peace in
the hands of the far left than in the hands of Donald Trump.

Syria today stands as a testament
to the failure of this worldview. The looming alliance between Putin, Trump and
Assad is set to finish the deal, returning what’s left of Syria to the control
of an unrepentant war criminal, all in the name of stability and a war on
terror that, by moving from one Faustian deal to another, continues to destroy
more nations and churn more terrorists at faster rates. Trump is gleeful at
this and the left is sad, but it’s no more willing than he is to do something
about it.

Indeed, the reason we currently
find ourselves in this most untenable position and the reason the future looks
so bleak is the combined effect of rightwing atavism and leftwing cynicism.
What the country and the world need is a major dose of pragmatism. Rather than
constructing walls, we need to build more bridges. To build bridges we need to
cooperate across the divide. We can neither divest ourselves from the world nor
be cynical in our engagement of it. And we need to be as suspicious of the
suspicions of trade as we are suspicious of the suspicions of refugees.

We also need to be clear-eyed
about our new friends, even if our President-elect is not. Russian dabbling in
the U.S. political process is likely to continue, whether through more hacking,
spreading more false news, or through empowering certain quixotic figures to
further disturb and polarize the political scene. And while Mr. Putin’s initial
goal might be to strengthen Mr. Trump’s hand vis-à-vis his detractors, the
Russian autocrat ultimately hopes to undermine the security and stability of
United States and sow chaos, not to help Mr. Trump emerge as the world’s most
powerful dictator. Mr. Trump may come to understand Putin’s true goals sooner
than the latter wants, thus souring their bromance. That day is dangerous if it
never arrives, but it’s also a dangerous potential flashpoint of which we
should be wary if and when it does arrive.

Thus, and as we seek to construct
more bridges than walls, both domestically and abroad, we should be keenly
aware of how troubled the waters we have to navigate happen to be, and how much
more dangerous they could become.

Go ahead, patronize me!

About Ammar

I am a Syrian-American Author and Blogger, and I currently work as a political analyst at Alhurra. The Delirica is a blog that relates my personal views and takes on current developments which do not necessarily reflect those espoused by any institution with which I am affiliated. My most recent publication is titled “The Irreverent Activist” and is available on Amazon.

The Delirica

Throughout the years, I have operated a variety of political, intellectual and artistic blogs in both Arabic and English. However, I am currently relying on The Delirica as my main personal online outlet for political analysis in English. All my previous online writings in English can be accessed at Ammar.World, The Daily Digest of Global Delirium and related sites. Arabic readers should refer to Hartaqah.